If we’re not going to stop climate change by reducing emissions, then we’re going to have to engineer some outlandish way to save civilization—that’s the basic logic behind geoengineering, which researchers in certain circles have been talking up for the past ten-plus years. Now, somebody’s actually going to try it, at least as a small-scale test.

One of these wild ideas is to fill the atmosphere with particles that block some sunlight from getting through. Harvard scientists are about to launch a small amount of these particles into the stratosphere in a test to be held next year.